preWhen I first read Andrij Dobriansky’s column of June 14 paying tribute to the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA) on its 75th anniversary, I read it quickly, without much thought.
Later, I read R.L. Chomiak’s letter in the July 12 issue of The Weekly. Mr. Chomiak was critical of Andrij Dobriansky’s description of the UCCA as “the nation’s oldest unifying assembly of Ukrainians and Ukrainian organizations.” Suddenly, memories of the UCCA catastrophe of 1980 came flooding back to me.
Founded in 1940, the UCCA stopped being “a unifying assembly” at its 13th Congress of Ukrainians of America in 1980 when the Liberation Front (a.k.a. “Banderivtsi”) decided to take over the organization and change its character. The coup was perfectly legal. The Liberation Front controlled the voting majority. They pushed through a list of candidates that did not include an executive vice-president from any Ukrainian fraternal benefit society. According to a by-laws provision, the UCCA executive vice-presidency was to be rotated among the four fraternal organizations of the time, the Ukrainian National Association (UNA), Ukrainian Fraternal Association (UFA), Ukrainian National Aid Association (UNAA) and the Providence Association of Ukrainian Catholics. Delegates’ protests of this revision and other convention irregularities were ignored by the convention chair. After much turmoil, delegates associated with the UNA, UFA, Plast, Ukrainian National Women’s League of America, Organization of Democratic Ukrainian Youth (ODUM), Organization for the Rebirth of Ukraine (ODWU), Zarevo, Ukrainian Gold Cross, Ukrainian Engineers’ Society of America and others walked out of the convention.
An October 26, 1980, editorial in The Weekly titled “Democracy in Action?” commented on the UCCA convention, condemning the “intolerance of differing viewpoints, as well as the rather crude political thinking of some delegates,” which “blinded them to such degree that they sought only victory for their own political grouping… On the way to its ‘victory’ the majority also approved congress rules that made it all but impossible for delegates themselves to ask for and obtain a secret-ballot vote.”
Soon after the UCCA convention, the leadership of the UNA established the Committee for Law and Order in the UCCA, headed by UNA President John Flis. The first public meeting of the committee was held on January 31, 1981, with 94 persons representing 27 organizations in attendance. During the meeting, Mr. Flis described his two earlier meetings with Dr. Lev Dobriansky, the UCCA president. Dr. Dobriansky had been intractable. He insisted that the 13th Congress was legal and legitimate. The matter was closed.
As the impasse dragged on, the World Congress of Free Ukrainians (WCFU) offered to mediate and on August 14 and October 9, 1981, representatives from both sides met. Dr. Dobriansky and the Liberation Front didn’t budge.
Meanwhile, the 11 Liberation Front members of the UNA Supreme Assembly created the Committee for Law and Order in the UNA, demanding that the UNA return to UCCA and criticizing the UNA for its involvement in politics.
Negotiations with the UCCA leadership, including efforts spurred by Ukrainian Church leaders, continued well into 1983, all to no avail. In May of that year, the Committee for Law and Order became the Ukrainian American Coordinating Council (UACC). The UNA then informed the WCFU that the UCCA was no longer its representative. Hoping to be legally constituted by the November convention of the WCFU, the UACC convened a constitutional convention on October 1 in Washington. A total of 122 delegates representing 30 national organizations participated. All of the events leading up to the formal establishment of the UACC were reviewed in a four-part series of articles by John O. Flis that appeared in The Ukrainian Weekly, October 23 through November 20 of that year.
Both the UACC and the UCCA were represented at the fourth World Congress of Free Ukrainians in Toronto in 1983. UCCA representatives attempted, but failed, to block WCFU recognition of the UACC. The UCCA also tried to block UACC representatives from a September 17, 1984, meeting with President Ronald Reagan on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the unveiling of the Taras Shevchenko monument in Washington. They failed again and Mr. Flis, Eugene Iwanciw and I represented the UACC.
As mentioned earlier, the UNA had 11 members of the Liberation Front in the Supreme Assembly. To many UNAers, it looked as if their next convention would result in a Liberation Front takeover. The behavior of the Banderivtsi at the 1980 UCCA conclave awakened 1982 UNA convention delegates to the threat. The result was the election or re-election of only four Liberation Front members to the Supreme Assembly: Tekla Moroz, Anna Haras, Askold Lozynskyj and Wasyl Didiuk. Askold Lozynskyj resigned in 1982 during the first meeting of the new Supreme Assembly.
What is the situation today? The question of fraternal representation in the UCCA executive is now moot. The UNAA and the UFA were absorbed by the Providence Association in the years 2000 and 2010, respectively. Providence, then under Banderite influence, remained in the UCCA all along. Today, the UACC is relatively moribund. The UNA was welcomed back into UCCA ranks following the election of Stefan Kaczaraj as UNA president.
One needs to ask: Other than staving off a Liberation Front takeover of the UNA, was the tumult of the 13th Congress of any value? Think about it. Today our community is fragmented. With fewer local branches, the UCCA, still dominated by the Liberation Front, is hardly representative of our community. And, as Mr. Chomiak pointed out in his letter, attendance at national UCCA functions is anemic.
So, what happens next? Will the UCCA ever return to its traditional role as a truly representative alliance for all major Ukrainian organizations? Will the UNA once again play a leading and vital role in UCCA affairs?
Today, unfortunately, most Ukrainian Americans seem indifferent to these questions and our overall domestic agenda. Not surprisingly, our focus is on events in Ukraine. The united future of our community, meanwhile, hangs in the balance.